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The Bacone school or Bacone style of painting, drawing, and printmaking is a Native American intertribal "Flatstyle" art movement, primarily from the mid-20th century in Eastern Oklahoma and named for Bacone College. This art movement bridges historical, tribally-specific pictorial painting and carving practices towards an intertribal Modernist style of easel painting. This style is also influenced by the art programs of Chilocco Indian School, north of Ponca City, Oklahoma, and Haskell Indian Industrial Training Institute, in Lawrence, Kansas and features a mix of Southeastern, Prairie, and Central Plains tribes.[ citation needed ]
The Oklahoma and New Mexico Native American art movements in the first half of the 1900s share similar traits that define the Native American art market, including patronage, mentoring, community-based collectives, and new structures of support through education and museums. [1] The Bacone school art movement was influenced by the Bacone College, as well as art programs of Chilocco Indian School, and Haskell Indian Industrial Training Institute, all of which were located in a similar geographic region. Tribes from the Southeastern, Prairie, and Central Plains regions each have their own historical practices of pictorial representation, whether in carving or painting; however, removal to Indian Territory in the 19th century disrupted many customary art practices. Access to Western art materials (such as easels, watercolors) gave Native artists a new means of self-expression, as well as a new way of recording history and daily practices. [1]
The Bacone style differs from the two other prevalent flat styles of Native American painting in Oklahoma of the time: Kiowa style, and the Studio style.[ citation needed ] The "Flatstyle" painting was in part made popular in the 1920s by the Kiowa style (also known as Southern Plains style) of painting by the Kiowa Six, which was rooted in the teachings of Oscar Jacobson at the School of Art at the University of Oklahoma (OU), where he served as director from 1915 to 1945. [2] [3] However the Bacone style was specifically different from the Kiowa style because the artists used brighter colors, depicted more movement and action, and included visual perspective. [3] [4] The Southern Plains style had its origins in Plains hide painting and winter counts. [ citation needed ]After the decline of buffalo herds in the late 19th century, Plains painting shifted to Ledger art, which, under the stewardship of such artists as Silver Horn (1860/1–1940, Kiowa), evolved into easel art.[ citation needed ]
The Studio style, as taught at the Santa Fe Indian School, first by Dorothy Dunn and later by Gerónima Cruz Montoya (Ohkay Owingeh), built upon the accomplishments of the San Ildefonso school of painters and Hopi painters such as Fred Kabotie, who were successful "Flatstyle" easel artists in the 1910s and 1920s in Arizona and New Mexico.[ citation needed ] These artists were inspired by Pueblo mural painting and pottery painting traditions. Their work often features pastoral scenes in muted colors. [5] [ dead link ] Collectively, these three Flatstyle movements were sometimes derided by Native artists in the 1960s as "Bambi Art," which has been criticized as nostalgic, sentimental, and limited in scope. [6]
Acee Blue Eagle (Muscogee Creek) was a student at Chilocco Indian School [7] and a student of Oscar Jacobson's at OU; [8] he helped shape the Bacone style.
The first Bacone College's art department director was musician/storyteller Mary "Ataloa" Stone McLendon, and between 1932 until 1935, she had built the structure that later became an early classroom for the art department (and is now named the Ataloa Lodge Museum). [9] [10] [11] She was followed by Blue Eagle serving as the second director from 1935 to 1939. [9] [10] Woody Crumbo (Potawatomi) succeeded him in 1938. [12] The year 1938 is given by artist Ruthe Blalock Jones (Shawnee/Delaware/Peoria) as the date the Bacone School of Indian Painting was established, [13] although some would say it should be 1935. [5]
Both Blue Eagle's and Crumbo's styles were also influenced by the streamlined, bold look of Art Deco. [5] Casein on illustration board was a popular medium, as well as gouache and watercolor. Technical skill in draftsmanship was emphasized, as was the ethnographic accuracy of subjects portrayed. Paintings were aesthetically pleasing, with contours of a certain hue often surrounded by outlines of lighter tints, to emphasize the spiritual nature of the subject. Figures were brilliantly colored with backgrounds of a "subdued palettes of greens, blues, and browns," as Ruthe Blalock Jones writes. [14] Blue, in particular, is a color representing sorrow, loss, and memory for some Southeastern tribes, and is often a preferred background color. Implied narrative gave the Bacone style a sense of drama. [5]
The Philbrook Museum of Art of Tulsa, Oklahoma helped foster the development of the Bacone style with its Indian Annual competitive art show from 1947 to 1957. [15] The Five Civilized Tribes Museum of Muskogee, Oklahoma and the Cherokee Heritage Center of Park Hill, Oklahoma both host annual arts shows with categories specifically for this style of art (the Cecil Dick award and the Jerome Tiger award, respectively). The Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma and National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City have extensive collections of Bacone School art.
This paved the way for a new style of American Indian art, the Bacone School of traditional Indian art, or simply the Baconian style. She was the first director of the art department, and she bequeathed the title to Acee Blue Eagle at her departure in 1935. In later years, the art lodge was renamed Ataloa Lodge Museum in honor of its founder.
William Thomas Gilcrease was an American oilman, art collector, and philanthropist. During his lifetime, Gilcrease collected more than 10,000 artworks, 250,000 Native American artifacts and 100,000 rare books and documents, including the only surviving certified copy of the Declaration of Independence. He was the founder of Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1971, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Bacone College, formerly Bacone Indian University, is a private tribal college in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Founded in 1880 as the Indian University by missionary Almon C. Bacone, it was originally affiliated with the mission arm of what is now American Baptist Churches USA. Renamed as Bacone College in the early 20th century, it is the oldest continuously operated institution of higher education in Oklahoma. The liberal arts college has had strong historic ties to several tribal nations, including the Muscogee and Cherokee. The Bacone College Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Muskogee County, Oklahoma since 2014.
Woodrow Wilson Crumbo (Potawatomi) was an artist, Native American flute player, and dancer who lived and worked mostly in the West of the United States. A transcript of his daughter's interview shows that Mr. Crumbo was born on January 31, 1912, so there is a discrepancy of the date until confirmation. As an independent prospector in New Mexico in the late 1950s, he found one of the largest beryllium veins in the nation, valued at millions of dollars.
Albert Lee Harjo, born in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Hanna, Oklahoma, was a fullblood Muscogee artist.
Acee Blue Eagle was a Native American artist, educator, dancer, and Native American flute player, who directed the art program at Bacone College. His birth name was Alexander C. McIntosh, he also went by Chebon Ahbulah, and Lumhee Holot-Tee, and was an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
Johnny Moore Tiger Jr., was a Native American artist from Oklahoma.
Willard Stone was an American artist best known for his wood sculptures carved in a flowing Art Deco style.
Fred Beaver was a prominent Muscogee Creek-Seminole painter and muralist from Oklahoma.
Spencer Asah was a Kiowa painter and a member of the Kiowa Six from Oklahoma.
Monroe Tsatoke (1904–1937) was a Kiowa painter and a member of the Kiowa Six from Oklahoma.
Lois Smoky Kaulaity (1907–1981) was a Kiowa beadwork artist and a painter, one of the Kiowa Six, from Oklahoma.
Walter Richard West Sr., was a painter, sculptor, and educator. He led the Art Department at Bacone College from 1947 to 1970. He later taught at Haskell Institute for several years. West is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
Virginia Alice Stroud is a Cherokee-Muscogee Creek painter from Oklahoma. She is an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.
David Emmett Williams was a Native American painter, who was Kiowa/Tonkawa/Kiowa-Apache from Oklahoma. He studied with Dick West at Bacone College and won numerous national awards for his paintings. He painted in the Flatstyle technique that was taught at Bacone from the 1940s to the 1970s.
Jimmie Carole Fife Stewart is a Muscogee (Creek) art educator, fashion designer and artist. After graduating from the Chilocco Indian School and taking courses at the University of Arizona, she earned a degree from Oklahoma State University and began working as a teacher. After a six year stint working for Fine Arts Diversified, she returned to teaching in 1979 in Washington, Oklahoma. Primarily known as a painter, using watercolor or acrylic media, Fife-Stewart has also been involved in fashion design. Her works have been shown mostly in the southwestern United States and have toured South America. Having won numerous awards for her artworks, she was designated as a Master Artist by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in 1997.
Valjean McCarty Hessing was a Choctaw painter, who worked in the Bacone flatstyle. Throughout her career, she won 9- awards for her work and was designated a Master Artist by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in 1976. Her artworks are in collections of the Heard Museum of Phoenix, Arizona; the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma; and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian of Santa Fe, New Mexico, among others.
Jane McCarty Mauldin was a Choctaw artist, who simultaneously worked in commercial and fine art exhibiting from 1963 through 1997. Over the course of her career, she won more than 100 awards for her works and was designated as a "Master Artist" by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She has works in the permanent collections of the Heard Museum, the Heritage Center of the Red Cloud Indian School and the collections of the Department of the Interior, as well as various private collections.
Solomon McCombs was a Native American artist from Oklahoma known for his paintings, murals, and illustrations.
Chief Carl Terry Saul (1921–1976) also known as C. Terry Saul and Tabaksi, was a Choctaw Nation/Chickasaw illustrator, painter, muralist, commercial artist, and educator. He was a leader of the Choctaw/Chickasaw tribe. He served as Director of the art program at Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, from 1970 until 1976.